Austria-vs-Reyes-digested

G.R. No.
L-23079 February 27, 1970
RUBEN AUSTRIA, CONSUELO AUSTRIA-BENTA and LAURO AUSTRIA MOZO, petitioners,

vs.
HON. ANDRES REYES, Judge, Court of First Instance of Rizal, PERFECTO CRUZ, BENITA
CRUZ-MENEZ ISAGANI CRUZ, ALBERTO CRUZ and LUZ CRUZ-SALONGA respondents.
ISSUE: Whether or not the institution of heirs should be annulled
FACTS:
Basilia Austria vda. de Cruz filed a petition for probate, ante mortem, of her last will and testament
and the probate of the will was allowed after due hearing.
The bulk of the estate of Basilia, admittedly, was destined under the will to pass on to the
respondents Perfecto Cruz, Benita Cruz-Meñez, Isagani Cruz, Alberto Cruz, and Luz Cruz-Salonga,
all of whom had been assumed and declared by Basilia as her own legally adopted children.
After Basilia died petitioners filed a petition in intervention for partition alleging in substance that they
are the nearest of kin of Basilia, and that the five respondents Perfecto Cruz, et al., had not in fact
been adopted by the decedent in accordance with law, in effect rendering these respondents mere
strangers to the decedent and without any right to succeed as heirs.
RULING: No, the institution of heirs should be not be annulled.
Before the institution of heirs may be annulled under article 850 of the Civil Code, the following
requisites must concur: First, the cause for the institution of heirs must be stated in the will; second,
the cause must be shown to be false; and third, it must appear from the face of the will that the
testator would not have made such institution if he had known the falsity of the cause.
The petitioners would have us imply, from the use of the terms, "sapilitang tagapagmana"
(compulsory heirs) and "sapilitang mana" (legitime), that the impelling reason or cause for the
institution of the respondents was the testatrix's belief that under the law she could not do otherwise.
If this were indeed what prompted the testatrix in instituting the respondents, she did not make it
known in her will. Surely if she was aware that succession to the legitime takes place by operation of
law, independent of her own wishes, she would not have found it convenient to name her supposed
compulsory heirs to their legitimes. Her express adoption of the rules on legitimes should very well
indicate her complete agreement with that statutory scheme. But even this, like the petitioners' own
proposition, is highly speculative of what was in the mind of the testatrix when she executed her will.
One fact prevails, however, and it is that the decedent's will does not state in a specific or
unequivocal manner the cause for such institution of heirs. We cannot annul the same on the basis
of guesswork or uncertain implications.
And even if we should accept the petitioners' theory that the decedent instituted the respondents
Perfecto Cruz, et al. solely because she believed that the law commanded her to do so, on the false
assumption that her adoption of these respondents was valid, still such institution must stand.
Article 850 of the Civil Code, quoted above, is a positive injunction to ignore whatever false cause
the testator may have written in his will for the institution of heirs. Such institution may be annulled
only when one is satisfied, after an examination of the will, that the testator clearly would not have
made the institution if he had known the cause for it to be false. Now, would the late Basilia have
caused the revocation of the institution of heirs if she had known that she was mistaken in treating
these heirs as her legally adopted children? Or would she have instituted them nonetheless?
Whatever doubts one entertains in his mind should be swept away by these explicit injunctions in the
Civil Code: "The words of a will are to receive an interpretation which will give to every expression
some effect, rather than one which will render any of the expressions inoperative; and of two modes
of interpreting a will, that is to be preferred which will prevent intestacys." 1

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G.R. No.

L-23079 February 27, 1970

RUBEN AUSTRIA, CONSUELO AUSTRIA-BENTA and LAURO AUSTRIA MOZO, petitioners,

ISSUE: Whether or not the institution of heirs should be annulled

RULING: No, the institution of heirs should be not be annulled.

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